Hell

There are good people in hell.

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Sunday Readings for September 29, 2019

steve-knutson-lQ2BzDNmnHE-unsplash.jpgThere’s nothing wrong with being a good person. Being good is just fine. The problem lies in what we define as a “good person.”  For the most part, I think we label someone as a good person if they don’t upset someone else. Stay in your lane, support the status quo, keep your eyes ahead and don’t rock the boat. A good person is good to their own family, mostly, and does just enough to leave a good impression. A good person is someone who is nice and polite. 

I bet the rich man in this Sunday’s gospel was thought of as a good person. Go read the gospel (click here). He doesn’t commit any atrocity. He stays in his lane. He is just a good guy. He does what is expected of him. 

What this parable tells us then is that being a good person is not enough to enter into eternal life with God forever. Being simply good (i.e. nice, polite, not trouble), doesn’t mean a person is on their way to eternal glory. 

While the rich man from the parable doesn’t do anything horrible, he also doesn’t do what he could to care for his neighbor. And this is the crux of the matter. Salvation rests not on being morally neutral, but on being sold out for love. It isn’t enough to avoid evil, we also have to do good. Not because we earn heaven, but because our salvation resides with Jesus Christ. 

We say yes to Jesus with more than our words, but with our lives. We say yes to Jesus when we actively seek to love and to love well. The rich man might be a good person, but he doesn’t love well. To love is to sacrifice for the good of the other, and the rich man fails to do that for Lazarus. 

When it comes to our culture’s definition of a good person, the bar is pretty low. We were made for more. We were made for Love. 

Live It:
Identify and then do 1 thing that serves someone else that you don’t want to do or normally wouldn’t do. When you do, say this prayer, “Jesus, I don’t want to do this. But I do it for you.” 

Everyone has a #1.

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September 30th Sunday Readings.

stlI married a Twins fan, but I grew up in St. Louis, MO as a rabid Cardinals baseball fan. In 1987 when the Twins played the Cardinals in the World Series, my heart was broken by Kirby Puckett and those upstart Twins with dyYcFhRxtheir dome-field advantage. When I moved to MN I adopted the Twins as my American league team. People ask all the time who I root for when the Cardinals play the Twins. My answer is easy – the Cardinals are my team.

Everybody has a #1. Everyone has something that is most important in their life. As much as we might hope to have a short list of priorities that are all equally important to us, when push comes to shove, one of those things will come out on top. In fact before mid-20th century the word priority was almost never pluralized. We only had a priority, not priorities. Screen Shot 2018-09-29 at 7.53.34 AM.png

When we try to hold multiple priorities in our hands we only deceive ourselves and set up a situation where our true priority might get lost in the shuffle. In fact, it happens more often than not that we don’t end up prioritizing the thing that we say or believe we hold most dear.

This is why Jesus Christ tells us that whatever causes us to sin we need to cut completely out of our lives. If anything confuses us about what is most important, we need to completely rid ourselves of it. It is better that we don’t have things that keep us from the most important thing.

What is the most important thing? God. If we truly want what was best for us, then our number one priority should be spending eternity with God, starting right now at this moment. 

How important should this priority be to us? So important we would be willing to loose a body part for it. How dangerous are the things that distract us from God? So dangerous that we should cut them out completely. 

I want to be clear, this isn’t easy. Christianity isn’t easy; it is good. The path is narrow. The way is hard. And it is worth it. God can do it, if we fully rely on Him. 

LIVE IT:
Take out your calendar (digital or paper), and figure out what is the thing that you build the rest of your life around. Work? Kids Activities? Gym time? Or could it be God/Prayer/Church? If someone never met you, but got to examine your calendar, what would they say is your number 1?

Don’t look the other way.

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Sept. 25th Sunday Readings

In my first year of marriage, I had this conversation with my wife maybe 1,783,537 times:

Me: Honey, my love – look, I cleaned up after myself (spoken proudly).
Wife: Darling, really. Really?!
Me: What do you mean? I wiped this down and washed this and put these things away.
Wife: Yes, and yet, dust bunnies remain there and streaks over here and look under here, untouched by your cleaning.
Me: I, literally, didn’t see any of that.
(Okay, maybe I embellished the sweet talk a bit, but you get the idea.)

I don’t think it was that I was bad at cleaning (maybe), it was just that I didn’t notice any of those unfinished tasks. I didn’t see the dirt and dust. It wasn’t a matter of effort or desire, but of vision. I didn’t clean what I couldn’t see.

Honestly, I think after college and guy apartment living, I had trained myself to ignore the dirt in the corners. I learned, through repetition, that as long as you got the big stuff, everything was good to go. I practiced seeing the big stuff and ignoring the little stuff.

I think the same thing happens in the gospel this weekend. Jesus tells a story of a rich man (who traditionally is named Dives) and the poor beggar Lazarus who sat just outside the rich man’s door. I think it wasn’t that Dives was an evil man, but he practiced ignoring Lazarus for years. Day after day, Dives would leave his home and ignore Lazarus to the point that he didn’t even see him any more.

What’s the result of years of ignoring Lazarus? Dives experiences the eternal, fiery, torments of hell. In a plot twist, Dives sees Lazarus and Abraham far off. Dives asks if Lazarus will do for him exactly what he didn’t do for Lazarus – show him mercy.

I can’t speak for you, but I think I have trained myself to ignore the poor.

Like Dives, I’ve learned to look away from every Lazarus I encounter. Most of the time when we stop at the top of an off ramp, I purposefully ignore the people asking for a handout. When we encounter someone on the street downtown, I rarely even acknowledge they are a human being in need of help. I’m happy to write a check or attend a fundraiser, but I don’t know the truly destitute who are my neighbors.

How about you?

I think for me this story is a challenge to see with new eyes. Jesus is asking us to unlearn all that we have taught ourselves. Particularly, he is inviting us to really see the poor and vulnerable. Jesus is challenging us to stop ignoring those around us who are in real need.

How important is it that we see the poor and vulnerable? Jesus suggests our eternal future depends on it.

LIVE IT:

Look for and see the humanity of the poor and vulnerable. That may mean looking into the eyes and greeting someone asking you for money at an offramp or downtown. It may mean reading the stories of the poor. It may mean simplifying your life so others can simply live.

At HNOJ here is where you can learn more about the poor and vulnerable.